January 2014 archive

ASPE-ROI Instructors Jon Parks and Mark Traphagen will speak at the inaugural High Five Conference in Raleigh, NC, on February 26, 2014, at 9am. They will be joined by ASPE President David Mantica.

Jon and Mark are marketing experts who have vast and in-depth experience with all things digital, and will present a three-hour workshop in a session called Digital Marketing The Right Way. During the session, they intend to present valuable digital marketing information to attendees that will make them leave asking the right questions to form their own digital marketing campaigns. They will be joined by David Mantica, a 20-year B2B veteran who has supported the use of digital marketing strategy from the beginning at ASPE. Katie Cothran, product manager for ASPE-ROI, will also join as a moderator. Topics include social media, content marketing, PPC, analytics, SEO and more.

The workshop will also be a refreshing change from your typical seminar presentation. In a popcorn-style format where speakers turn lively discussion into presentation and audience interaction, these three marketers will walk through what it means to make a great digital marketing campaign, address common myths and mistakes, and provide real-world examples that they have first-hand knowledge about.

Visit the High Five Conference website to learn more or register to attend. Added bonus: Friends of ASPE-ROI get a 15% discount to the conference. Just use promotional code “ASPE” during registration.

When people think marketing, they might think about the 4 P’s (product, place, price and promotion), or Super Bowl commercials, or now social media. There are many techniques people use to DO marketing, but before you overthink and get overwhelmed, let’s take a big step back and simplify marketing down to its essential essence.

Marketing, done well, is like having a conversation with your best, most empathetic friend. A good marketer understands your needs, some needs that you might not even know you have. They know your concerns, your hopes, your aspirations and they address them in a way that’s compelling and relevant for you.

If your website receives significant traffic from a search engine that isn’t on Google’s default listing, then you could be missing organic search traffic data. Fortunately, Universal Analytics offers a fix.

Custom Search Engine Tracking

Most companies have realized that a customer base who engages with them is good for brand recognition and public relations. But social media is still a low priority for many companies and organizations because they have not seen the dollar amount in revenue or profit directly tied to social media efforts. Those people say, great, we tweeted about a project we’re working on, or about a show at which we are exhibiting or sponsoring. How can we measure likes, retweets and follows in monetary contribution?

There isn’t an exact science, but there are plenty of metrics you can use to associate a revenue stream from single tweets, posts or any other social media effort and connect it with your business’ bottom line. Our friends at Shelten Media developed a short case study about their client The Matthews House to show exactly what the power of social media can do to increase revenue.

Hummingbird is the latest Google algorithm update that is rumored will affect 90 percent of searches worldwide. Some say it’s the biggest algorithm update since Caffeine in 2010. Others say it’s as big as the complete rewrite of 2001. Regardless of which expert you choose to believe, it still remains true that SEO is changing at a rapid pace. Those who continue to do SEO based on what has worked in the past will be quickly left behind.

What is Hummingbird?

On September 29th, Google announced the release of their new search algorithm. In fact, Google had released the changes to the algorithm a few weeks earlier, little by little. Hummingbird aims to challenge websites to produce better, more relevant content.

According to Google, Hummingbird is a new search engine built on both new and existing elements of how Google used to create search engine result pages, as well as new elements organized in a way to better serve the search demands of today.

In 2014, we will see high-quality content tip the scale for search engine optimization (SEO), especially as Google expands its In-depth Articles section on page one.

Why did Google introduce In-depth Articles?

According to the search engine specialists, there are enough people looking for well-developed, unique content that it created a special residence for in-depth articles among organic search results and paid advertising on page one, the holy grail of search engine results pages (SERPs).

Deleting cookies from Internet browsers is a growing trend in the digital age, but online advertisers should be aware of how it influences Google Analytics data – or, what we like to call the great numbers game.

One of the best recent comments from a student who took our Google Marketing Boot Camp was, “I had no idea negative keywords existed.” He happened to be in the business of kitchen cabinets and was using AdWords, but didn’t really know what he was doing. He also didn’t know that when people searched for file cabinets, his ads appeared and people were clicking on them anyway, and he lost money. After class he sent us a note letting us know that the money he saved by learning what negative keywords were more than paid for the class. So, we figured we’d share the wealth. ‘Tis the season, right?

So, what are negative keywords? They are search terms that are similar to your keywords but are for people searching for a different product or service. By using negative keywords you can:

Reduce your costs, like our student mentioned above.

Expose your ad to people who are more likely to click and purchase your product.

Prevent your ad from displaying to people who aren’t interested in your product.

Where do you go in your AdWords account to set up negative keywords?
Go to the campaigns tab and then keyword tab. At the bottom of the keywords table you will see “negative keywords.” Click on the + sign to the left and it will expand negative keywords tables for both your Ad groups and Campaigns.